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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327335">your freezing hand</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextstopparis/pseuds/nextstopparis'>nextstopparis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>merthur week [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merlin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, M/M, POV Second Person, lol, well it's meant to be angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:46:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>981</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327335</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nextstopparis/pseuds/nextstopparis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You love how he showed you every crack and dent and vulnerability in his walls all those times you let the night wrap around you tight enough that spilling everything in your mind didn’t feel like falling apart.</p><p>For Day 5 of Merthur Week: "Any other lies left to tell me?" + Angst</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>merthur week [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Merthur Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>your freezing hand</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>merry christmas!! or whatever else you celebrate!! and if you don't celebrate anything, then i just hope you had a nice day!!</p><p>this is later than usual but only bc i got caught up watching the crown with my mom laughing at her calling ch*rles a bastard.</p><p>title from ivy by taylor swift (are we even fucking surprised jesus christ)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em> Any other lies left to tell me? </em> he snarls, and you can hear the, <em> was any of it real?, </em> crawling up his throat and sticking to his teeth, never finding its way out. You’ve never needed to hear him to know, anyway. </p><p>The hurt is obvious in every part of him: the tense line of his shoulders, and the clench of his jaw. It’s clear in the glint of tears lining his eyes, and in his voice - gone cold with distrust and steady with calculation. He’s not familiar to you like this - just as you, probably, are unfamiliar to him - but there is a hint of terrible recognition. Recognition that makes it feel as if you’ve done so much, only to end up right at the start again.</p><p>You’ve seen him like this once: for a week, only, before he started opening up to you. But even during that week - those seven days that you thanked god for passing too quickly to memorize - he wasn’t like this. </p><p>The silence of those days was uncomfortable, not tense and angry. Sharp orders that were given were attended to only because you didn’t have the familiarity to disregard them, not because you’d lost the privilege to. They were the days before you trusted and cared for each other, not after you so thoroughly betrayed his trust and threw all your history to the wind for shredding. Those seven days before the quests and sacrifices that hadn’t made sense, but had finally settled that restless swirl of not belonging in your stomach; turned it into a warm fire instead.</p><p>He was more hesitant than distant, then. You weren’t an enemy, just a vague anomaly.  </p><p>And maybe it’s a little backwards, the way this is hurting you, too. Maybe everything shouldn’t feel so suffocating and nauseating, but it does. It hurts because Arthur’s not supposed to be like this, not with you. Because you’d hoped that - maybe, just maybe - it wouldn’t matter. That he’d look at you and at least <em> try </em>to - </p><p>You want to reassure him, you do. You want to tell him that <em> yes, it is real, I promise </em> and have it be a hundred percent true. You want to go over to him and explain everything and hold him and let him hold you back but - but you also want to shove him against the wall and yell; scream <em> I don’t know </em> and demand how dares he ask, even if he has every right.</p><p>You don’t know if it’s real. You <em> want </em> it to be real, you do. You want it to mean something more than everything because you’re so - <em> so, so, so </em> - heartily sick of destiny. So goddamn sick of this thing that’s been tightening it’s hold on your throat that you want - <em> need </em> - this thing with Arthur to be <em> different</em>; to be <em> yours. </em> Which sounds backwards, again, because Arthur’s the embodiment of your destiny but - but he’s also kind, and compassionate, and insecure, and a <em> pain in the ass </em> and so, so very lovely past all the glory that’s been promised him, whether he knows about it or not, and you love him. </p><p>You love the weight of his steps on the stone floors, and you love the gentling of his voice as he tries to comfort his distressed people that come to him. You love the way his voice shifts with every different shade of emotion, the way his eyes hold the clear blue skies of summer in them, and the way his hair turns into its own treasure in the sunlight. You love how he showed you every crack and dent and vulnerability in his walls all those times you let the night wrap around you tight enough that spilling everything in your mind didn’t feel like falling apart. </p><p>You love him, you do, and it’s like this fire that grows and cracks and engulfs your intestines. Loving Arthur is as intrinsic as your magic is, and you know that you wouldn’t give it up for anything. It has <em> never </em> felt wrong or bad, not the way some decisions your destiny has forced you to make have. It may have been inconvenient, sometimes. Nonsensical, maybe. But never wrong. </p><p>So maybe the problem isn’t that you don’t know. Surely, a feeling this sweet and precious must be authentic. Maybe the problem is that you’ve spent your entire life here pretending it isn’t, because maybe you’re scared that as real as it is to you, it isn’t to him. </p><p>Then you’re back to looking at him, and he’s framed by the light spilling in from the window. His shoulders aren’t any less stiff and you can see that his jaw is still clenched. He’s looking at you the same way he looks at enemies that are about to hurt his loved ones. He’s looking at you the same way he looks at bandits terrorizing innocent travellers. He’s looking at you the same way he looked at his father when he was ordered to stop distributing the castle’s grain during the beginnings of a famine.</p><p>He’s looking at you, and it’s something truly wretched, it is, and you realize that this is all your fears come to life. So you unclasp your hands, walk towards him, and throw yourself to your knees at his feet.</p><p>He whispers a startled - terrified, confused, wet - <em> Merlin </em> and falls with you. </p><p>The both of you reach for each other at the same time, and you cry choked <em> sorry</em>’s and explanations into his shoulder. You don’t think he understands, and you think he’s still angry, but he’s listening, now, holding you, so surely - surely it can’t be that bad.</p><p>You tell him that you love him and that it <em> is </em> real, and he grips you tightly to his chest, hand in your hair, and doesn’t say anything at all.</p><p>And you accept it, because you understand.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading! hope you enjoyed it and that it was angsty n stuff. this was my first time writing second person!</p><p>once again, i hope you had a very nice day:)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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